The Defence
Heading into the 2020-21 season, the defence core strikes me as the biggest wild card facing the team. If things go right, I could see them going really well, but I could also see everything completely going off the rails into a pit of chaos. Here’s a look at the additions and subtractions of the Flames defensive depth chart across all levels of the organization:
Added: Chris Tanev, Nikita Nesterov, Connor Mackey, Johannes Kinnvall, Colton Poolman, Alex Petrovic,
Subtracted: T.J. Brodie, Travis Hamonic, Derek Forbort, Erik Gustafsson, Rinat Valiev, Andrew Nielsen
Ordinarily losing four NHL level defenders from your core would spell disaster for an upcoming season, but some free agent signings along with the much awaited return of Juuso Valimaki should be more than enough to cover those losses.